cers: "The spring of my life was tempestuous, and its summer has been painful; but I have laid up at home a fund of joy and happiness for my autumn."

Captain Cook was an able commander, - very strict, and sometimes severe, in enforcing discipline, but constantly attentive to the health, comfort, and honor of those under his command. A finer piece of manhood has seldom trodden a quarterdeck.

ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM PARRY.

In order to be very much distinguished in this busy world, it is necessary to do something that nobody else ever did. Admiral Parry could boast that he had been nearer the North Pole than any other human being. It is doubtful if a polar bear ever went nearer, or even a seal. Four hundred and ninetyfive miles more would have brought him to the pole itself, and he would have lived forever in history as the first man who ever performed that feat. Let us see how he came to go to that uncomfortable region, and why, having gone so far, he did not go all the way.

There are still living in Connecticut a few old people who remember a certain day in the spring of 1814, when half a dozen British man-of-war's boats, filled with armed men, suddenly appeared at the mouth of the Connecticut river, and rowed twenty miles up it, to a place where a whole fleet of American privateers and blockade-runners had taken refuge. Twentyseven of these vessels, all unprepared for resistance, were captured and burnt. The British boats then descended the river with equal celerity, and got off with only a loss of two men. Before the alarm had been spread widely enough to attract the local militia to the river's banks, the enemy were out of the river and safe on board the blockading ship. The officer who commanded one of the smartest boats of this dashing expedition was no other than Lieutenant William Edward Parry, afterwards so famous as an arctic navigator.

A few months later another officer, destined to mournful celebrity as a northern voyager, fought bravely in the gun-boat battle that preceded the landing of British troops below New Orleans. It is not generally known that Sir John Franklin

commanded one of the English boats in that battle, and was badly wounded. He captured one of the American gunboats, and was promoted for his gallantry.

Lieutenant Parry, born in 1796, was the son of an eminent physician of Bath, several of whose works upon medicine and kindred subjects are still known. At thirteen he entered the British navy as midshipman, and, during the long wars with Napoleon, fought and studied his way up, until, at the peace of 1815, he was first lieutenant of a ship. Compelled then to retire upon half pay, he fretted for two years on shore, always longing for active service. In 1817, in a letter to an intimate friend, he happened to write a good deal about an expedition, then much talked of, for exploring the river Congo, in Africa, and expressed a strong desire to make one of the party. When this letter was finished, but before it was put into the post-office, his eye fell upon a paragraph in the newspapers, stating that the government were about to send vessels in quest of a passage round the northern coast of North America, which would shorten the voyage from England to India from sixteen thousand miles to about seven thousand. Parry reopened his letter, and, mentioning the paragraph, concluded a short postscript with these words:

"Hot or cold is all one to me, Africa or the Pole."

His correspondent showed this letter to a friend, who was the man in England most devoted to the project in question, — Mr. Barrow, secretary to the admiralty. Within a week from that time, Lieutenant Parry was thrown into an ecstasy of astonishment and delight by receiving the appointment to command one of the two ships preparing for the enterprise, the other being under the command of the chief of the expedition, Captain Ross. The orders were, "To explore Baffin's Bay, and ascertain the probabilities of a north-west passage."

This expedition was a ridiculous failure. The two ships sailed in April, 1818, and made their way, without much difficulty, to Baffin's Bay, which they entered, and, to some slight extent, explored. Soon, however, there appeared above the horizon what Captain Ross insisted was a range of mountains, barring the way against the further progress of the ships. He

accordingly returned to England, and reported those impassable mountains to the admiralty. Lieutenant Parry, however, told them, and told the people of England, that what Captain Ross took for a range of mountains was only a deceptive mirage, common in polar regions. The admiralty and the people believed him. A second expedition was prepared, of which Lieutenant Parry was placed in command.

At midsummer in 1819, Lieutenant Parry, with his two vessels, the Hecla and the Griper, had the pleasure of sailing over those imaginary mountains; and, pushing on, he discovered and named Barrows Straits, Wellington Channel, and Melville Island. He was then about half way through the "North-West Passage." Twelve hundred miles more of straight sailing would have brought him through Behring Straits, and out into the broad Pacific. But no ship has ever sailed those twelve hundred miles, and it is safe to say that no ship ever will. At Melville Island Lieutenant Parry's two ships were caught by the early winter, and, for ten months, remained locked in the ice, immovable. Here we see the impossibility of sailing round from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The distance is about three thousand miles, and the summer of two months is not long enough to navigate a vessel so far in waters obstructed by fields and mountains of ice.

Ten months in the ice! If this had happened a hundred years before, two-thirds of the crew would have died of scurvy. But Captain Cook and other navigators had discovered that the antidote to scurvy is vegetables and fruit; and, accordingly, these ships had an abundant supply of onions, potatoes, lemonjuice, lime-juice, and other fruity preparations, which kept the men in excellent health. In such forlorn circumstances it is exceedingly difficult to preserve a ship's company from falling into home-sickness and melancholy. Lieutenant Parry showed great talent in keeping the men both employed and amused. Hunting parties relieved the tedium of the day, and, for the evening, a theatre was prepared, where plays, written by Parry himself, were performed. Nothing puts such animation into a winter camp of soldiers, or an ice-bound ship's crew, as a series of dramatic entertainments. There is such a bustle of prepa

ration so many can take part in the performance and the performance itself is so pleasing, that all hands are busy and expectant. Besides the theatre, the officers published a weekly paper, which criticised the performances and recorded the events of the week.

The ice broke up at length, and Lieutenant Parry deemed it best to return to England, where he was received with great enthusiasm. His discoveries had been numerous, and were considered important, and it was agreed on all hands that he had displayed unusual talents and humanity as a commander. He made two other voyages in search of a north-west passage, and added to geography the names of many lands and waters hitherto unknown. He also established the fact that, whether there is a north-west passage or not, it can never be of any practical use in the navigation of the globe. These services procured him just promotion. In 1826 he was a post-captain, and held a lucrative place in the admiralty.

One of the mysteries of science is the magnetic needle. Captain Parry, in all his northern voyages, watched the needle of his compass closely, and recorded its every variation, curious to know if nearness to the pole made any change in its direction or in the amount of force by which it was attracted. In 1826, while he was living on shore, he conceived the project of carrying a compass to the North Pole itself, and ascertaining in what direction the needle would point there. His plan was to sail a small ship as far north as possible, and then, taking with him vehicles that could be used both as sleds and as boats, push on northward to the Pole. The government consenting, he sailed in the Hecla, in March, 1827, and anchored in a harbor of Spitzbergen early in June.

This harbor is just six hundred and sixty-seven miles from the North Pole. On the 21st of June, Captain Parry, with two sled-boats, each containing two officers and twelve men, left the Hecla, bound for the Pole. The first eighty miles was pretty plain sailing, over a sea little obstructed by ice. Next they came to a vast expanse of loose, broken ice, as difficult to walk upon as to sail through. To avoid the danger of snow-blindness, they travelled only by night; and such were the difficulties